


turn my head until my darkness goes

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [28]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Sakura has a memory of looking down at her wrist and seeing a name. Or, at least, what looked like a name. It’s one of her first memories, and she wasn’t able to read at the time. By the time she can read her wrist is blank.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Sai
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 10
Kudos: 204





	turn my head until my darkness goes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones
> 
> For day 28 of Fictober, stitches
> 
> Three more days you guys, I am dying, please have mercy on my soul.
> 
> This is kinda a weird soulmate universe I made here, with a lot of rules, so I'll be talking about them in the end notes. I recommend trying to read it before checking the end notes, but you do you babe.

Sakura has a memory of looking down at her wrist and seeing a name. Or, at least, what looked like a name. It’s one of her first memories, and she wasn’t able to read at the time.

Her parents assure her that she _told_ them there was something there, but since only the individual can see the mark on their own wrist, they had no way to confirm it one way or another.

And by the time she can read and write, her wrist is blank and the memory too blurry for her to decode what name it said.

Not that it matters.

Her soulmate is dead, if the name has vanished.

She feels like losing her soulmate -- having lost her soulmate? -- should feel like something, but if anything she’s just slightly annoyed at her wrist and the lack of name there. There should be a name there, she’s sure.

Of course, if she made the whole thing up, and if there was never a name on her wrist, then they haven’t been born yet and it’s fine.

Her parents happily remind her of that, touching their wrists and smiling at each other.

But she _knows_ that there was a name. And now it’s blank. And that means that her soulmate is dead.

But _that_ she doesn’t believe. Isn’t willing to believe, maybe.

And maybe that’s why she lies to Ino about it — because it’s _wrong_ that it’s blank. If her soulmate really were dead then it would make her some sort of tragic romantic figure, and also a better ninja according to, like, everyone.

It’s bad to lie about the name on your wrist. Because while one sided bonds do exist, they’re very rare and usually a sign of something tragic. Though having a dead soulmate is just as tragic as a one sided bond, so it's not like she's really hurting herself, she thinks.

And maybe that’s why she lies about it.

Or maybe she just wants to be normal and have a name on her wrist like everyone else, and over corrects by announcing it, instead of keeping it secret like you’re supposed to.

“It’s Sasuke,” she claims, blissfully unaware of the mistake she’s making, and the repercussions it will have for the rest of her life.

But Sakura is young, and her wrist is blank and if she presses her wrist agains another it won’t make the names suddenly visible to either of them, because there’s no name to become visible.

So she lies, and she makes a mistake, and she pays for it.

***

“You’re Sakura Haruno?” the weird temporary addition to the team asks, wide fake smile causing his eyes to squint almost closed. There’s something though, behind his dead eyes that she can't place that makes her feel inexplicably guilty.

“I am,” she says with a smile — just as fake but more convincing, thank you, “and you’re Sai, right?”

He nods and looks down at her hand and — most ninja don’t like to shake, but she thinks he’s expecting her to, so after a beat she extends her hand to shake his. His hand is warm, strong and callused, and she realizes there’s a burn scar circling the entirety of his wrist.

“What happened?” she asks, the urge to see if she can heal the scar tissue burning in her, since it’s clearly an old injury and Tsunade has only just started letting her work on older scar tissue since it’s harder to work with.

“Accident,” he says, and he still hasn’t let go of her hand, but she wants to reach for his wrist and this is stopping her, so she doesn’t protest even though they’re just standing there and holding hands now and that's weird.

“Is that your dominant hand, Sai-kun?” Kakashi asks, suddenly, from over her shoulder, and she drops his hand with a jolt.

He hums in response, and his smile gets bigger — and faker — and she wonders if it means what she thinks it does. What does happen to a wrist with a name if there’s an injury? The name appears on the wrist of the dominant hand, would it show up _over_ the scar tissue, or would it be gone for good?

“I’m sorry,” she says, because that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to show sympathy about, even though she mostly just wants to skip away from the subject because —

“D’you know whose name it was? Is it still there? Can you see it? Sakura-chan has Sasuke-bastard’s name on her wrist, but he said he doesn’t have her name, but he might be lying because he’s a bastard,” Naruto says in a rush, and Sakura reaches out to smack him upside the head reflexively, for telling so much about her to some weird stranger.

Even if they are supposed to be teammates.

They aren’t yet. And he’s lying with his smile. And she doesn’t trust him.

She doesn’t.

***

“You’re lying about your soulmate,” Sai says on their third mission together, when Naruto is meditating. “Sasuke isn’t your soulmate.”

Sakura snorts and continues to debone the fish, but inside she’s shaking. She’s committed to this lie for too long, now, to think that the truth will do anything but hurt her. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

He nods his head and takes the fish from her to add it to the soup. “I am.”

She shouldn’t ask anything else. She should leave it since he’s clearly convinced himself and it doesn’t matter what he thinks and she shouldn’t ask anything else but — “Why do you think that?” she asks, turning away to tidy things up so she won’t give anything away.

“You were sincere in trying to kill him,” he says, simply, and she scoffs.

“That was the mission,” she points out, glancing at him and then away quickly when she finds his gaze is steadily focused on her.

“If he was really your soulmate you wouldn’t be willing to hurt him,” he says, simply, and from the corner of her eye she can see he’s turned away finally and pulled out some paper and his brush.

There’s something about him when he’s painting that draws her attention, even when she doesn’t want to look at him, and she is actually done with her section of the chores — well, as long as dinner doesn’t burn. But that’s just as much on him as on her. She picks a rock where she can see him and sits down and goes through her suture kit. Tsunade asked her to practice more, when she has a chance, and since she hasn’t had to stitch up any teammates she’ll have to use the pig skin to get her practice in.

“He’s my responsibility, as my soulmate,” she says, as she watches him start to paint with his right hand, shinny burn scar shifting awkwardly as his hand flexes, and then he switches his brush to his left hand, and the lines stay steady flowing from his brush.

“No,” he says simply, not looking up, “I won’t be able to hurt my soulmate.”

She makes a face at him, even though he’s not looking at her, and focuses back on her stitching. “We’re not the same.”

“That’s true, but we are more similar than you want to admit,” he says, simply, and then proceeds to ignore her for the rest of the night.

For some reason she dreams about him painting her own name on her wrist, left hand flexing gracefully around the brush before he vanishes in a swirl of ink.

***

“What name do you have on your wrist?” he asks, later, once he’s trusted and she knows she would kill or die for him.

He hasn’t brought up soul marks since their first disastrous conversation where he accused her of lying about Sasuke. She considers him, the soft bend of his neck as he shuffles through his pack, the paleness of his skin in the darkness.

“It’s blank,” she says, because for all that he still calls her names and doesn’t know how to behave in most situations, she trusts him completely. Naruto's never asked, only assumed, though she would tell him the truth now, too. But she thinks him believing Sasuke is on her wrist helps him, so she's hardly going to rock that proverbial boat. “There used to be a name, I think, but it’s gone now.”

He sits back on his heels and stares up at her with wide dark eyes. “Oh.” He ducks his head again, but doesn’t go back to his pack. She glances around again to make sure they haven’t been found yet — because it’s her job to watch his back right now, not to get distracted.

Suddenly he’s standing and holding his hand out for her to shake. She arches an eyebrow.

“Hello, Sakura. My name is _Sai_ ,” he says, an echo of their past. It doesn’t seem like the best time to be trying to redo the past, not when they’re so far, well, past that. But she supposes it is only recently that he was freed from the ROOT binding. Maybe this is important to him, if a bit random. 

So she extends her hand to claps his, bemused when he wraps his fingers around her wrist instead of the hand itself. “You’re so weird,” she says, fondly, glancing around again.

He doesn’t release her wrist for a long moment, staring down at their hands like there’s an answer there that he’s waiting for. Finally she lets out a huff of breath and tugs on her wrist. His fingers peel slowly off her skin and — and there’s darkness underneath them.

Not a bruise, he hadn’t held her nearly strong enough for that but —

but a _name_.

She stares at her wrist, at where his name curls over her veins like fire.

“What — how —“ she stares at him and then at her wrist again — and then at his _burnt_ wrist but then he’s holding his left hand out to her, turned face up so his wrist is there.

“I’ve known your name even when I had forgotten mine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I'm sorry if it wasn't clear -- I hope it was!
> 
> But if it wasn't. Soulmate names appear on the wrist of the dominant hand, but are only visible to the person whose wrist it is. If the soulmate dies...or forgets their name, then the name will vanish. You can damage the soul mark by damaging the skin, so it won't be visible to anyone. If you're, say, ambidextrous and don't have a 'dominant hand' then your soulmates name might appear on either, or both, wrists. 
> 
> Also there's a way for soulmates to see each other's marks but it involves a long ceremony and stuff and it's not really mentioned in the fic at all, so don't worry about it. 
> 
> Uh, let me know if there are any questions, please feel free to follow me on tumblr safelycapricious (main) or capriciouswrites (writing) and chat. I am friendly. Mostly.


End file.
